Auditless

over 2 years ago

Happy to share more about our collaboration with @aerafinance to develop a pioneering treasury management protocol.

over 2 years ago

Back in 2021, @tarunchitra mentioned an idea he had for a decentralized treasury management protocol. @gauntlet_xyz had figured out a way to use a network of parameter submitters to collectively satisfy arbitrary treasury management objectives. Challenge This was one of the most exciting prompts for protocol design I'd heard. DAOs didn't have an effective and tailored way to trustlessly manage their capital. It was also clear that many parts of DeFi (e.g., options protocols) could benefit from organic institutional-style demand. From there, @auditless was enlisted as an R&D partner to help design and implement successive iterations of the protocol and we got to work. Solution @auditless worked closely with the Product, Engineering, Leadership and BD teams at @gauntlet_xyz as well as with our engineering partners @blockvis_team and security partners @SpearbitDAO. We collectively shaped & developed a trust-minimized treasury management protocol which uses current DeFi instruments and off-chain guardians to satisfy a variety of custom treasury objectives. The live Aera protocol is pioneering custom treasury objectives for each client, a frictionless deployment process and a path to decentralization through the use of a guardian role. Results +$4.3M (and counting) since inception Auditless helped develop 2 major versions of the Aera protocol which have led to several active treasury deployments. The flexibility of the underlying smart contracts allows Aera to address distinct needs with each deployment. These vary from volatility targeting, deepening liquidity, generating yield on idle holdings and diversifying treasury assets. Clients are drawn to the trust model that Aera provides. Guardian actions are highly limited and guarded by a variety of pre and post-execution hooks that include action whitelisting, allowance checks and limits on vault value changes — all enforced onchain. On the flipside, Aera clients have full and immediate control over their funds and are free to utilize their Aera vault as a wallet. +$8M raised for Aera The Aera Foundation has now raised $8M from @jump_ and @BainCapCrypto to continue scaling the protocol. From PR Newswire: “The Aera team has developed a much-needed solution perfect for crypto-native organizations looking to responsibly manage their treasuries,” said @stefancoh, partner at Bain Capital Crypto. “Aera is the first solution of its kind for DAO treasury management and was built by a team that’s amazingly well equipped to usher in a new era of responsible decentralized finance growth.” Most importantly – it's been a highlight of my career to collaborate and learn from the many talented individuals in the Aera team: @tarunchitra @ChiangRei @jmo_mx @shaanvaria @JuliusDegesys @mattdobel @_nickborg Victor Xu, Simon Yakunin @BenSchreck @saucekind Trey Sadiq, Jesse Kao, Nick Hewitt @jreem. This is only the beginning.

p_e's tweet photo. Back in 2021, @tarunchitra mentioned an idea he had for a decentralized treasury management protocol.

@gauntlet_xyz had figured out a way to use a network of parameter submitters to collectively satisfy arbitrary treasury management objectives.

Challenge

This was one of the most exciting prompts for protocol design I'd heard.

DAOs didn't have an effective and tailored way to trustlessly manage their capital.

It was also clear that many parts of DeFi (e.g., options protocols) could benefit from organic institutional-style demand.

From there, @auditless was enlisted as an R&D partner to help design and implement successive iterations of the protocol and we got to work.

Solution

@auditless worked closely with the Product, Engineering, Leadership and BD teams at @gauntlet_xyz as well as with our engineering partners @blockvis_team and security partners @SpearbitDAO.

We collectively shaped & developed a trust-minimized treasury management protocol which uses current DeFi instruments and off-chain guardians to satisfy a variety of custom treasury objectives.

The live Aera protocol is pioneering custom treasury objectives for each client, a frictionless deployment process and a path to decentralization through the use of a guardian role.

Results

+$4.3M (and counting) since inception

Auditless helped develop 2 major versions of the Aera protocol which have led to several active treasury deployments.

The flexibility of the underlying smart contracts allows Aera to address distinct needs with each deployment.

These vary from volatility targeting, deepening liquidity, generating yield on idle holdings and diversifying treasury assets.

Clients are drawn to the trust model that Aera provides.

Guardian actions are highly limited and guarded by a variety of pre and post-execution hooks that include action whitelisting, allowance checks and limits on vault value changes — all enforced onchain.

On the flipside, Aera clients have full and immediate control over their funds and are free to utilize their Aera vault as a wallet.

+$8M raised for Aera

The Aera Foundation has now raised $8M from @jump_ and @BainCapCrypto to continue scaling the protocol.

From PR Newswire:

“The Aera team has developed a much-needed solution perfect for crypto-native organizations looking to responsibly manage their treasuries,” said @stefancoh, partner at Bain Capital Crypto. “Aera is the first solution of its kind for DAO treasury management and was built by a team that’s amazingly well equipped to usher in a new era of responsible decentralized finance growth.”

Most importantly – it's been a highlight of my career to collaborate and learn from the many talented individuals in the Aera team: @tarunchitra @ChiangRei @jmo_mx @shaanvaria @JuliusDegesys @mattdobel @_nickborg Victor Xu, Simon Yakunin @BenSchreck @saucekind Trey Sadiq, Jesse Kao, Nick Hewitt @jreem.

This is only the beginning.

18K

auditless retweeted

BlockLayer Podcast

@BlockLayerPods

4 months ago

Last month’s x402 V2 rollout brought us closer to the machine economy future. But agent legitimacy verification is still the big gap — ERC-8004 fixes that. Zyfai (a leading yield agent integrating the standard) says ERC-8004 launches this Friday, bringing onchain identity + reputation for trusted agent marketplaces. x402 handles how agents pay — ERC-8004 handles whether they should. Here’s why this could transform the agent economy👇 ~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~ The Problem Right now, if an agent offers to do work — reconcile documents, analyze data, execute a trade — there's no universal way to verify its track record. Users cobble together trust from testimonials, documentation, onchain analysis, trial-and-error. Agents can't prove competence to new clients. And agents can't verify each other, hindering the grand vision of agent-to-agent workflows. This creates two failure modes: Without verifiable identity, bad actors spin up agents, extract value, and disappear. Without portable reputation, good agents start from zero every time they enter a new market. The machine economy needs both. The Three Registries To solve these issues, ERC-8004 comes equipped with three onchain registries — smart contracts storing and indexing a specific type of data: ➢ The Identity Registry gives every agent a unique onchain identity as an ERC-721 token. The identity includes a registration file declaring the agent's capabilities, communication system and endpoints (MCP, A2A, ENS, DIDs), and its supported trust models — the methods the agent will use to prove trustworthiness, whether reputation-based, validation-based, or TEE attestation. Agents own their identity. If a platform shuts down, the identity persists onchain. Without identity, agents compete on price alone, setting up a race to the bottom. With portable reputation, quality becomes a moat. ➢ The Reputation Registry tracks cryptographically verified feedback from clients. Before leaving a review, clients must obtain a "signed" authorization from the agent (to prevent spam and ensure feedback occurs from real interactions). Scores live onchain, queryable by other smart contracts. A service contract could check that an agent's average score exceeds a threshold before accepting a bid. ➢ The Validation Registry coordinates third-party verification of agent work — auditors who confirm whether the agent did what it claimed. This registry's specification is still under active discussion and won't be finalized at launch. Together, these three registries give agents portable proof of who they are, how they've performed, and whether their work checks out — all verifiable onchain without relying on any single platform. How It Connects to x402 Connect them to x402, which handles payments, and communication protocols like A2A and MCP, and you have a complete stack for agent-to-agent economic activity. Discover an agent's identity and reputation via ERC-8004. Negotiate terms via A2A or MCP. Settle payment via x402. Submit feedback to ERC-8004 after verifying the work. Trust accrues and a marketplace is born. Discovery Infrastructure At launch, you'll be able to discover agents in two places: For humans, go to @8004_scan, a searchable directory by @yq_acc showing 8004 registration metadata, reputation scores, and interaction records aggregated across blockchain deployments. For agents, xgate will handle agent-to-agent discovery. It indexes agents and serves them via an agent-rank algorithm to other agents making decisions at speed. When an agent needs a capability it doesn't have, they can query xgate to return ranked options: who can do this, what's their history, what does it cost. Early Builders To be clear about where we are: the infrastructure is launching, but we're early in the agent lifecycle. The rails exist before the services using them have matured. Few useful agents exist and as critics like @auditless have fairly pointed out, ERC-8004 doesn't itself host agents, doesn't hold developers legally accountable, and relies on feedback mechanisms that need additional infrastructure to become truly robust. The standard provides primitives, not a complete solution. And as of now, there are few teams publicly building tooling for 8004 or announcing intent to integrate their agents with the standard. Those that are come from standout teams: @daydreamsagents has released the Lucid Agents Commerce SDK — a framework for building 8004-enabled agents capable of agent-to-agent communication and x402 payment. Their founder @lordOfAFew is also building a Claude Skills market "for all things x402, 8004 and Daydreams." On the agent side, @ZyfAI_, the increasingly out-performant yield agent, will be live with ERC-8004 come launch, recording ZK proofs of its transactions in its Verification Registry, which third parties can audit and then review in Zyfai's Reputation Registry. While I did find an "8004 Ecosystem" map from November, few to none of the teams listed have referenced their plans regarding 8004's launch. What to Expect Hopefully, ERC-8004 launches January 16th. If it does, it may come first on L2s to minimize gas costs, with L1 deployment following as demand warrants. While 8004scan was previously filled with test registrations, Thursday's v1.0 release required a complete storage wipe from testnet — a clean slate to help identify the most "legitimate" agents. Previous agents will need to re-register, but this won't be repeated. Future updates will use namespaced upgradability, meaning accumulated reputation persists across versions going forward. For builders, the Lucid SDK and discovery infrastructure are ready. For those watching, 8004scan will show what's registering and who's accumulating reputation. As with x402, it'll probably take time for 8004 to get going but hopefully we see some agents quickly come out of the woodwork to show off the best of ERC-8004 and x402. With the x402 hackathon (sponsored by the EF, Coinbase, and EigenCloud, among others) recently wrapping up, these may emerge quite soon.

BlockLayerPods's tweet photo. Last month’s x402 V2 rollout brought us closer to the machine economy future. But agent legitimacy verification is still the big gap — ERC-8004 fixes that.

Zyfai (a leading yield agent integrating the standard) says ERC-8004 launches this Friday, bringing onchain identity + reputation for trusted agent marketplaces.

x402 handles how agents pay — ERC-8004 handles whether they should.

Here’s why this could transform the agent economy👇

~~ Analysis by @kenzixbt ~~

The Problem

Right now, if an agent offers to do work — reconcile documents, analyze data, execute a trade — there's no universal way to verify its track record. Users cobble together trust from testimonials, documentation, onchain analysis, trial-and-error. Agents can't prove competence to new clients. And agents can't verify each other, hindering the grand vision of agent-to-agent workflows.

This creates two failure modes:

Without verifiable identity, bad actors spin up agents, extract value, and disappear. Without portable reputation, good agents start from zero every time they enter a new market.

The machine economy needs both.

The Three Registries

To solve these issues, ERC-8004 comes equipped with three onchain registries — smart contracts storing and indexing a specific type of data:

➢ The Identity Registry gives every agent a unique onchain identity as an ERC-721 token. The identity includes a registration file declaring the agent's capabilities, communication system and endpoints (MCP, A2A, ENS, DIDs), and its supported trust models — the methods the agent will use to prove trustworthiness, whether reputation-based, validation-based, or TEE attestation. Agents own their identity. If a platform shuts down, the identity persists onchain. Without identity, agents compete on price alone, setting up a race to the bottom. With portable reputation, quality becomes a moat.

➢ The Reputation Registry tracks cryptographically verified feedback from clients. Before leaving a review, clients must obtain a "signed" authorization from the agent (to prevent spam and ensure feedback occurs from real interactions). Scores live onchain, queryable by other smart contracts. A service contract could check that an agent's average score exceeds a threshold before accepting a bid.

➢ The Validation Registry coordinates third-party verification of agent work — auditors who confirm whether the agent did what it claimed. This registry's specification is still under active discussion and won't be finalized at launch.

Together, these three registries give agents portable proof of who they are, how they've performed, and whether their work checks out — all verifiable onchain without relying on any single platform.

How It Connects to x402

Connect them to x402, which handles payments, and communication protocols like A2A and MCP, and you have a complete stack for agent-to-agent economic activity.

Discover an agent's identity and reputation via ERC-8004. Negotiate terms via A2A or MCP. Settle payment via x402. Submit feedback to ERC-8004 after verifying the work.

Trust accrues and a marketplace is born.

Discovery Infrastructure

At launch, you'll be able to discover agents in two places:

For humans, go to @8004_scan, a searchable directory by @yq_acc showing 8004 registration metadata, reputation scores, and interaction records aggregated across blockchain deployments.

For agents, xgate will handle agent-to-agent discovery. It indexes agents and serves them via an agent-rank algorithm to other agents making decisions at speed. When an agent needs a capability it doesn't have, they can query xgate to return ranked options: who can do this, what's their history, what does it cost.

Early Builders

To be clear about where we are: the infrastructure is launching, but we're early in the agent lifecycle. The rails exist before the services using them have matured. Few useful agents exist and as critics like @auditless have fairly pointed out, ERC-8004 doesn't itself host agents, doesn't hold developers legally accountable, and relies on feedback mechanisms that need additional infrastructure to become truly robust. The standard provides primitives, not a complete solution.

And as of now, there are few teams publicly building tooling for 8004 or announcing intent to integrate their agents with the standard.

Those that are come from standout teams:

@daydreamsagents has released the Lucid Agents Commerce SDK — a framework for building 8004-enabled agents capable of agent-to-agent communication and x402 payment. Their founder @lordOfAFew is also building a Claude Skills market "for all things x402, 8004 and Daydreams."

On the agent side, @ZyfAI_, the increasingly out-performant yield agent, will be live with ERC-8004 come launch, recording ZK proofs of its transactions in its Verification Registry, which third parties can audit and then review in Zyfai's Reputation Registry.

While I did find an "8004 Ecosystem" map from November, few to none of the teams listed have referenced their plans regarding 8004's launch.

What to Expect

Hopefully, ERC-8004 launches January 16th. If it does, it may come first on L2s to minimize gas costs, with L1 deployment following as demand warrants.

While 8004scan was previously filled with test registrations, Thursday's v1.0 release required a complete storage wipe from testnet — a clean slate to help identify the most "legitimate" agents. Previous agents will need to re-register, but this won't be repeated. Future updates will use namespaced upgradability, meaning accumulated reputation persists across versions going forward.

For builders, the Lucid SDK and discovery infrastructure are ready. For those watching, 8004scan will show what's registering and who's accumulating reputation. As with x402, it'll probably take time for 8004 to get going but hopefully we see some agents quickly come out of the woodwork to show off the best of ERC-8004 and x402.

With the x402 hackathon (sponsored by the EF, Coinbase, and EigenCloud, among others) recently wrapping up, these may emerge quite soon.

13K

5 months ago

@john_guilding 🫡🫡

auditless retweeted

John

@john_guilding

5 months ago

Someone labeled public raises published on DefiLlama for the month of December, and privacy was the number one category

john_guilding's tweet photo. Someone labeled public raises published on DefiLlama for the month of December, and privacy was the number one category https://t.co/hjXvFhp8DR

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Who to follow

Writing about how protocols acquire market power. Founder @auditless. Clients raised $450M+.

Joey @ NS

@joeysantoro

Building @ns at the frontier of human society. Creator of @erc4626 @feiprotocol

auditless retweeted

6 months ago

Great article by @auditless on $JESSE, and how @zora / @base are trying to force PMF on a pure speculative asset The thesis that "attention has value in itself" is a fad Attention is priced in via Ads, and if those are not integrated at a protocol level, fundamentals are broken Link below

auditless retweeted

Eli5DeFi

@Eli5defi

8 months ago

https://t.co/DLHJ6x6WTj

auditless retweeted

Eli5DeFi

@Eli5defi

10 months ago

➥ Eli5 Reading List (pt. 4) ➠ @auditless - GPT-5 and the Great Slowdown https://t.co/tl33AAJZ89 ➠ @heliuslabs - Bringing Slashing to @solana https://t.co/RxTtJWeyg3 ➠ @0xcatalysis - The Demand-Side Problem in Restaking https://t.co/1Bo1zYAoly ➠ @Token_Logic - Deep Dive on @aave V4 https://t.co/WTtjBkLhss ➠ @tophash - Comprehensive CEX Analysis https://t.co/Wfg38bW3mH ➠ @yukiXBT - The Experience Layer https://t.co/kJgRh0VJGh ➠ @j0hnwang - Prediction Market Perps on @HyperliquidX https://t.co/4SGGvqAFEN ➠ @fipcrypto - I re-read Vitalik’s post and found the endgame for airdrops https://t.co/1sLwLSL5AQ ➠ @Ahnor_Block - Stablecoins: The Quiet Revolution and Why @avax is Built For It https://t.co/8po8JFyDQ9 ➠ @FourPillarsFP - Navigating The New Crypto Reality https://t.co/6wYaLupRho

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auditless retweeted

11 months ago

Helping launch @unichain was one of the biggest projects we've had the privilege to work on at @auditless. Launching an L2 these days isn't easy: – The landscape is highly competitive – You have to be both differentiated and build a complete ecosystem – There are more grant programs and events than ever Time to do a little behind the scenes. ↓

p_e's tweet photo. Helping launch @unichain was one of the biggest projects we've had the privilege to work on at @auditless.

Launching an L2 these days isn't easy:
– The landscape is highly competitive
– You have to be both differentiated and build a complete ecosystem
– There are more grant programs and events than ever

Time to do a little behind the scenes.

↓

812

auditless retweeted

Eli5DeFi

@Eli5defi

11 months ago

➥ Eli5 Reading List (pt. 3) ➠ @max_spero_ - AI -induced psychosis https://t.co/6U75mHRycI ➠ @peacefuldecay - The Final Meta https://t.co/NMibrBhwNy ➠ @jlabsdigital - Insensitive Ethereum https://t.co/6WAWsCYVWY ➠ @reganbozman - Crypto VC Undergone Radical Transformation https://t.co/p9wlX3tT6P ➠ @tn_pendle - The Expansion of @pendle_fi https://t.co/i9RCj9z0mC ➠ @asxn_r - Stablecoins https://t.co/RKmUQoyR10 ➠ @auditless - Robinhood Marks the End of Crypto https://t.co/P4wfcO8dNo ➠ @dawninternet - Inference Black Box https://t.co/vi0hbrmneb ➠ Old Coin - Long Degenerary https://t.co/vaK69KmEkM ➠ @wassielawyer - From Community to Citizenship https://t.co/71IdXCvq3n

auditless retweeted

Brian

@N0th1n3

11 months ago

One of the best there is and most importantly a complete joy to work with.

590

auditless retweeted

1sla.eth 🏝️ @0xisla

11 months ago

Loved being part of the work this team did on the @unichain launch! If you need McKinsey level strategy people in crypto that know how to execute - get @p_e at @auditless on speed dial 😆

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polarpanda35 — (d/acc) @polarpanda35

12 months ago

@polarpanda35 @p_e 🙌

auditless retweeted

12 months ago

i was researching about something related to dexes and saw @p_e medium article which cleared my doubt and now I am perma bullish on his firm @auditless

404

auditless retweeted

Peter / 1k(x)

@pet3rpan_

12 months ago

Who else would you consider a top research firm? eg. @Delphi_Digital @Decentralisedco @blockworks

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19K

auditless retweeted

Ash

@ahboyash

12 months ago

Big pp • @MessariCrypto • @Delphi_Digital • @MessariCrypto • @blockworksres Medium pp • @FourPillarsFP • @Decentralisedco • @AleaResearch • @DeSpreadTeam • @blocmates • @reflexivityres • @sistineresearch Niche pp • @mementoresearch • @Shoalresearch • @Kairos_Res • @Tiger_Research_ • @threesigmaxyz • @PineAnalytics • @asxn_r • @auditless

@ahboyash @pet3rpan_ @Delphi_Digital @Decentralisedco @blockworks @MessariCrypto @blockworksres @FourPillarsFP @AleaResearch @DeSpreadTeam @blocmates @reflexivityres @sistineresearch @mementoresearch @Shoalresearch 🙌

12 months ago

auditless retweeted

about 1 year ago

.@auditless research getting referenced in our own Perplexity queries:

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about 1 year ago

@sebrobdw this is the wei

auditless retweeted

Sebrobdw @sebrobdw

about 1 year ago

been diving @auditless research this morning studying infra > panic selling https://t.co/pVF4wQWdj1

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over 1 year ago

🤝🙌

Devin Walsh

@devinawalsh

over 1 year ago

.... and grateful for the support the UF has received from the @auditless team led by @p_e over the last year as the team assisted us in scaling our team and grants program to support building an L2 chain DeFi ecosystem 🙏

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